This A was bought by Grandpa in the 1960’s as a spare tractor that matched his 47A and could be used for parts. It was not used much at all, always had problems with rusty fuel tank and carb. It was parked in the very early 80’s in a shed and was dragged outside around 1992 to make room for extra square hay. I drug it out of the bushes along with the 60 that was beside it in 2008. Original plans were to fix it and paint it pink for the wife as a mate to my 47A. However as the project progressed it was fairly apparent she had little interest in it. Also the serial number tag is missing on this one so I had to guess at the year.

Here it is when I first dragged it out from the field, bush in the front is the A, bush in the back is the 60;




Here are some after the weeds and bushes got cleared off by Grandpa;







I picked it up and found some temporary wheels for it then took it home;







Engine was stuck but broke loose fairly easily after a few weeks of soaking the cylinders with penetrating oil. Among the problems encountered were, broken oil filter housing bolt base plate, stuck valves, lots of crap in cylinders, old welded head crack, completely rusted out gas tanks, etc…










After making the major repairs I started it and drove it around on the bad rims to make sure everything worked before going any further. (notice the clutch, its running in this pic)

Next it was time for a couple good soaking with oven cleaner and pressure washings, notice how that $1 a can stuff really strips her down;






Next my boy spent some time sanding and scraping while I did some prep work and then she was ready for a final oven cleaning and pressure washing then the PPG epoxy primer and then the PPG base and clear coat, we decided to not do any body work to show how good the original condition was on all our tractors, so no bondo or dent fixing;















Now she’s almost ready to go back to work;

To see all of the pictures go to this link;
http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj235/a...mafrog/Tractors




Sorry for all the posts but the board would only let me put 10 pics up at a time.
Thanks,

Excellant job!!!!!! Those look great.

Well done good to see it popping again

(just one thing: wheel hubs should be yellow )

There are several little things I need to touch up like the hubs being the wrong color and the new seat back needs painting and the decal, etc.
The way I painted it they just so happened to have turned out green and I haven’t gotten around to taping them off and painting them yellow yet. To me it looks much better with the green hubs but in the interest of originality I will eventually make them yellow. My tractors are still (and probably always will be) a work in progress.
Thanks to all for the supportive comments!

Wow,
That looks really really nice.
Wish mine ran and looked 1/2 that good.

It will someday.
Butch

Wow!
That thing really came a long way from the shape it was in! Wonder what the huge amounts of crud were in the cylinders? I like seeing the steps of the restoration like you did. I wish I could remember to take more shots as I go. Have to remember to grab my camera more often for my 820 rebuild.
Good job!

Yea, taking pics as you go is great, it serves many purposes, one is the pleasure of looking back at what you’ve done and being able to share it with others. But one of the biggest benefits with a good quality digital photo is you can go back and zoom in on stuff if you forget how something goes together, I’ve had to do just that several times on many different projects. The best part is you can take all the pics you want and it is free as long as you don’t print them out.

I believe the majority of the crap in the cylinders were dirt-dobber nests, you can see a few of them still stuck to the pistons and undamaged. The carb was not installed, they mst have gotten in through there or the exhaust and the valves must have been open.
My 60 (the one in the background completely covered in weeds) was the same way, cylinders full of dirt, but is was much harder to break free because the spark plugs were not in it and it must of rained right in the cylinders for about 15-20 years.

Believe it or not after breaking them loose, I removed the pistons, cleaned everything up, honed the cylinders cleaned the heads and lapped the badly rusted up valves with a drill motor and rubbing compound and put them right back together with only new gaskets. The compression is good on both tractors (~70 psi) and they both start and run great.

Thats dedication right there!! A+++